In researching epoxies the one thing that a lot of manufacturers seem to reccomend for expoxy used an adhesive is not to apply too much pressure to the joint because you can make it 'dry' and consequently weak. This would seem to reinforce the idea that really high pressures are not necessarily a go...

Has anybody considered using the inside of a single piece of box beam for a press rather than trying to fabricate something? I was thinking that a 7 foot long section of 10" by 8" beam of wall thickness 1/4" would probably make a great press. A first quote looked like the metal would ...

Thanks for the pointer on the steel book. As for the analysis - I am aware that I need to look at the whole structure for an acccurate view - I was really just doing a calculation based on the concept of having the beams supported at ether end so that I could 'side load' the mould and skis. In this ...

Good point - I hadn't considered that.

Has anyone tryed anealing to bend the tips, then reheating and quenching to reestablish the edge hardness? It would seem that having the edges soft in the tips is not the most desireable thing....


B.

This is a bit preliminary but: I was doing some calculations to work out how big the I beams should be for my press and surprised myself at how much movement you get with a beam. I could not find actual data on I beam stiffness off the web (rather strange) so I did some rough calcs from 1st principl...

Thanks for the advice. - Yes I was going to try laminating the planks first and ripping laminated planks out of the resuling 6 inch square beam. I was a bit concerned at the prospect of such a dramatic cut hoever, so ripping first is quite appealing! If you pick your strips strategically can you bal...

... I have got 6" X 1" planks which I was going to try to laminate. I had not considered that the wood would move considerably when cutting it.

Would I be best off ripping them into 'strips' first and then laminating them?

I am about to laminate my wood cores and had a question - I have bought the lumber which has been smooth cut and is dimensionally pretty repeatable. However there is enevitably some warping (aprox 2-3mm over the 1.8m length) and I was wondering if I can ignore that and laminate the planks as is or i...

B.

Just a quick question: Does the thickness of the base material have to correspond to the dimension of the edges that you have? It would seem that the distance that the edge hangs down when glued to the base should be the same dimension as the base thinkness so that they end up being flush at the bot...

Excellent site guys - I am sleepless at the prospect of building my own boards! One thing that seems to be the most investment both in time and money is the press - consequently I would be very keen to team up with anyone in the Boston area who is also interested in building skis or who is already d...